Lebanese army lays siege to refugee camp

updated 2:00 a.m. ET May 22, 2007

TRIPOLI, Lebanon - Inside the camp, Palestinian refugees sought shelter in their homes and mosques, warning that their food supplies were running out. Outside, the sirens of ambulances mixed with the blasts of mortars, artillery and tank shells.

For a second day Monday, refugees were caught in crossfire as the Lebanese military surrounding the Nahr el-Bared camp sought to crush a militant group with al-Qaida ties that was holed up inside.

“There are many wounded. We’re under siege. There is a shortage of bread, medicine and electricity. There are children under the rubble” of damaged buildings, Sana Abu Faraj, a resident of the camp, told Al-Jazeera television by cell phone.

A brief midday truce allowed 18 wounded civilians to be evacuated. But the pause in fighting quickly ended with a blaze of gunfire and a renewed barrage that sparked several large blazes and sent a pall of black smoke over the camp. Palestinian officials in the camp said nine civilians were killed Monday, but the report could not be confirmed.

Nascent al-Qaida-style terrorism?
The fierce, two-day battle has killed nearly 50 combatants and an unknown number of civilians, raising fears that Lebanon’s worst internal violence since the 1975-1990 civil war could spread in a country with an uneasy balancing act among various sects and factions.

NBC video Battle casualties May 21: NBC's Richard Engel reports on the fighting in and around the Palestinian refugee camp. Nightly News

The army is seeking to uproot a militant group called Fatah Islam, which arose late last year in the camp, on the outskirts of the northern port city of Tripoli. The group touts itself as a Palestinian liberation movement, but many view it as a nascent branch of al-Qaida-style terrorism with ambitions of carrying out attacks around the region.

Nevertheless, the military assault adds yet another layer of instability to Lebanon’s potentially explosive politics. Prime Minister Fuad Saniora’s government already faces a domestic political crisis, with the opposition led by Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah demanding its removal.

Fighting quieted after nightfall amid attempts by other Palestinian factions to broker a cease-fire, but by Tuesday morning artillery and machine gun fire echoed around the refugee camp as battles resumed, ending the overnight lull.

Earlier, the representative of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad, Abu Ahmed Rifai, said Fatah Islam militants pledged to cease firing and withdraw from positions facing Lebanese troops. A senior officer at Lebanese army command would not say a cease-fire was reached but repeated the military’s stance that it will not shoot if it does not come under fire.

It was not known what sparked Tuesday’s exchanges.

Bomb blast in Beirut
Raising fears of spreading violence, an explosion went off in a shopping area in a Sunni Muslim sector of Beirut later Monday, wrecking parked cars and injuring four people — a day after a bomb blast in a Christian part of the capital killed a woman. Although there were no claims of responsibility, the confluence of two bombings in as many days while the fighting was going on in Tripoli was highly unusual.

Hundreds of Lebanese troops surrounded Nahr el-Bared, staying outside in accordance with a nearly 40-year-old agreement with the Palestinians. The troops pounded the camp with artillery and tank fire, and militants responded with gunfire and mortar rounds.

All day, automatic gunfire and explosions rocked the camp — which is more like a small town, with more than 31,000 people living in two- or three-story white buildings on densely packed narrow streets alongside mosques, schools and businesses.

Saniora risks sparking a backlash among Palestinians in Lebanon’s other refugee camps, where armed groups and Islamic extremists have been growing in influence — and, in at least one case, have been sending recruits to fight U.S. troops in Iraq. If the military moves into Nahr el-Bared in force, it could trigger widespread anger around the Arab world, particularly at a time when Israel is battling Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The White House said it supports Saniora’s efforts to deal with the fighting, and the State Department defended the Lebanese army, saying it was working in a “legitimate manner” against “provocations by violent extremists” operating in the camp.

The leader of Fatah Islam, Palestinian Shaker al-Absi, has been linked to the former head of al-Qaida in Iraq and is accused in the 2002 assassination of a U.S. diplomat in Jordan. He moved into Nahr el-Bared last fall after being expelled from Syria, where he was in custody.

Since then, he is believed to have recruited about 100 fighters, including militants from Saudi Arabia, Yemen and other Arab countries, and he has said he follows the ideology of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Among the militants killed in the fighting Sunday was a man suspected in a plot to bomb trains in Germany last year, according to Lebanese security officials.

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